Gaston County grand jury indicts woman for voting

Friday

Buffy Christina Quinn, 39, had pleaded guilty to a larceny charge in Gaston County Superior Court in June 2016 and received probation, according to court records.

She apparently was still on probation when she voted in the 2016 general election, according to court records.

A Gaston County grand jury indicted Quinn this week on a felony charge of violation of election law. She was released from custody on an unsecured bond with her next court date scheduled in December.

A state report found 12 cases of possible illegal voting in Gaston County in the 2016 general election. It’s a small portion — nearly 97,000 local votes were cast — but such cases could face potential prosecution under North Carolina law.

Eleven of the cases involved suspected voting by felons and one suspected instance of voting by a non-citizen.

“The State Board is in the process of referring all remaining felon voting cases, including 11 cases from Gaston County, to district attorneys,” Patrick Gannon, a spokesperson for the state Board of Elections, told The Gazette in August. “Those records are not public record because they are part of current criminal investigations. The non-citizen case is under investigation.”

Bell said earlier this month he would prosecute those cases.

“You’re not allowed to vote illegally,” Bell said. “If you do it, and I get the information, I’m going to prosecute you.”

Nearly 4.8 million North Carolinians voted in the 2016 general election. A sliver of them — about 500 — were identified by the state Board of Elections as having potentially voted illegally.

That amounts to less than 1 percent of votes cast. President Donald Trump has claimed "millions and millions" of people voted illegally in 2016, but has yet to offer any proof to support those claims.

State election officials said the number of ineligibles ballots indentified would not have changed the outcome of any race across the state.

Some of the election fraud cases have received national attention. In August, The New York Times profiled 12 people in Alamance County, just east of Greensboro, charged with voting illegally in the 2016 election.

All of them had previously been convicted of felonies and were on probation or parole — barring them from voting in North Carolina.

State law prohibits felons from voting until their entire sentence — including probation or parole — is complete.

Locally, Bell said he’s prosecuted “four or five people” for illegal voting throughout his career as DA, but none in recent memory.

In the Alamance cases highlighted by The Times, people who’d been charged said they did not mean to vote illegally — that they thought it was OK since they were no longer incarcerated.

As far as Gaston County’s neighbors, the state identified five suspect cases in Cleveland County, one in Lincoln and 15 in Mecklenburg.

As an example of how someone could mistakenly vote illegally, the state described a scenario in which someone could legally register to vote before being convicted of a felony, show up to vote while on probation and still be registered and think it’s OK to vote.

“In North Carolina, voting by a felon is a strict liability crime, which means no intent is required on the part of the voter,” Gannon said in August. “The State Board is mandated by law to investigate ‘frauds and irregularities’ in elections.”

The report by the state indicated a need for better screening upon registration when it comes to felons.

“Investigators were able to rule out more than 100 voters initially flagged as ineligible through the audit, further supporting the need for investigative review of data audits,” reads the report. “These new processes are being implemented to ensure those serving felony sentences do not remain on the voter rolls and that all registrants are checked against the current felons’ database at the time of registration.”

You can reach Kevin Ellis at 704-869-1823 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteKevin.

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